


participation trophy

by okayantigone



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Gen, Mafia families being mafia families, Nathan being a father to literally anyone other than Neil
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-30
Updated: 2017-06-30
Packaged: 2018-11-21 10:27:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11355579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: 1. (n. phrase)-an award that kengo moriyama does not get





	participation trophy

**Author's Note:**

> i don’t really know what this is, just some young (13-14) year old ichirou feeling lonely and neglected. let’s assume this is right after kengo had kayleigh killed and that’s what he and tetsuji are having a conversation about

Ichirou sits on the floor in front of his father’s study. From the inside he can hear angry voices - his father and his uncle yelling at each other, no doubt, although he can’t make out what they’re saying. He feels like he can sink in the thick hallway carpet. 

He’s leaning back on the wall, eyes closed. He specifically checked his father’s schedule for the day to make sure that he’d get five minutes with the man to get his signature on a few permission slips for school, and present his report card (straight As, except for one B he hopes might be ignored. 

He is prepared to wait a while, but things must be gotten out of the way, and he’s already pushed waiting long enough. The door flies open, and he opens his eyes and looks up, but it’s just Nathan walking out, clearly displeased. 

Sometimes his father doesn’t like to have Nathan in the room for everything, especially when he is discussing family business. Ichirou goes back to staring at his hands, knotted in his lap over the thick creamy pages from the school. 

“What are you doing up so late?” Nathan asks in Japanese. He has an accent - and a pretty strong one at that. 

Ichirou is surprised at being acknowledged. Most of his father’s man rarely if at all speak directly to him - they don’t dare, because he will be their master one day. He keeps his face impassive and shrugs. 

“I need him to sign some things for me.” 

Nathan bends down to be at the same level as him. 

“They’ll be in there a while,” he says. “What is it? I’ll sign it.” 

Ichirou sighs in frustration, as he hands the school papers over. He can forge his father’s signature on his own. That’s not the problem. That’s never the problem. 

Nathan scans the work over. 

“Ski trip in Aspen?” 

“It’s a school trip.” Ichirou says. 

“You have a house in Aspen.” 

“It’s a school trip,” Ichirou repeats. He can’t explain it. Of course he has a house in Aspen. If only they ever went there, but they don’t. That’s not the point. The point is - that he should, at least to some extent, try to mingle. 

Nathan scrawls Kengo’s signature at the bottom, and then signs his report card. 

“That’s a lot of A’s,” he remarks. 

“Yeah,” Ichirou agrees. It’s a lot of A’s. 

It’s one A short of enough As. Perhaps it’s better that his father not see it. 

“Do you want me to tell your father you’ll be going to Aspen?” 

Ichirou shrugs again, and takes his papers back, standing up. “Tell him. Or don’t. See if he notices that I’m gone from the house.” he says impassively. “It’s all the same to me.” 

“Your father -” 

Ichirou turns his back to Nathan. The perfunctory “Your father is proud of you,” that comes after every brutal blow of disappointment at another dinner he has alone in the dining room, another empty seat in the front row of the auditorium when he performs on the piano, another blank look sent his way when he mentions something he’s SURE his father should have remembered him doing - He doesn’t need it. He isn’t a child. 

Nathan takes his dismissal for what it is. 

Ichirou walks to his room, puts the papers in the plastic sleeve to present to his teachers. If he doesn’t enjoy Aspen with his classmates, he can always retire to the house and spend a few days on his own. As usual. He makes a note in his calendar to have someone sent to check the security and make sure it’s habitable. 

He carefully checks the new glass frame of his honour roll certificate, snaps all the closing parts in place, and hangs it on the wall next to all the other ones, between an award from a piano performance two months ago, and a junior achievement certificate for debate skills. He closes his eyes. 

My father is very proud of me. 

He opens his eyes. The lights glint off of his silver fencing silver medal. The only pictures he has from the tournament he placed second in are from the mother of the first place winner. They should be in the mail tomorrow, so he can put one up. Not that his father ever goes in his room. Not that he will see it. He isn’t even sure why he bothers putting them up on his wall, when he could just as eaily have them in a folder on his desk. But it’s a thing he’d heard people do. (

(”My mother puts all my certificates in frames along the staircase,” says George William III. His father owes Ichirou’s father sums in the millions. But Ichirou doesn’t have a mother.) 

He stands there, looking at his wall, until the motion-activated lights overhead go off. Then he moves so they turn on. 

His father is proud of him.


End file.
